Blender 2.78a force field not affecting particles
If you want your particle system to be affected by a force field, add a separate force field object (or alternatively enable force field physics on any other object), and also check its strength setting in its physics panel as the default strength of 1 is a rather subtle effect. Also in the case of a "Wind" force, check its direction, because by default it might be vertical, and the effect might look like gravity. Simply rotate the object with the wind physics to change the direction.

If you enable the force field settings on the particle system itself, it will not have the effect you want: these are used if you want your particles to affect other dynamic objects, such as other particle systems. You can check "Self Affect" to affect itself, but this is still not what you want.